


Chasin' Some Tail

by Kaytla



Series: Chasin' Some Tail [1]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:49:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaytla/pseuds/Kaytla





	1. Never Piss Off a Sorceress

Inuyasha had become belligerent.

Kagome had been gone for years. Miroku and Sango couldn't find the time much to visit anymore, busy raising the brat army Sango had popped out since they got married. That was something the hanyou had become grateful for recently; he'd begun to notice the passage of time and the stresses of parenthood in the faint lines on their faces that got deeper every year. He'd been tactful enough not to mention them, but knowing that he still looked the same - knowing he was still _young_ \- just made it fucking depressing.

But it meant he was alone. Again.

It had been a vast, yawning void for a while. He'd been restless and angry, so he'd picked a fight with any demon that came within a five mile radius of Kaede's village. He'd hated seeing the pity in the old bag's eyes, so he'd travelled from time to time. Without aim, though, his feet had always eventually carried him back sooner or later. He would sit by the Bone Eater's Well, knowing full well he was torturing himself, and remember.

In more desperate moments, he'd hold his breath and jump in. It never surprised him to feel his feet hit packed dirt instead of experiencing that weightless sensation of drifting through time and space, but it never failed to disappoint him, either. He would have given anything to be able to visit her.

As days blended into weeks and months, a hard shell formed around him. The walls of bravado and an uncaring nature had served him well for two centuries. Just because Kagome's warmth and compassion had pulled them apart didn't mean the foundations weren't still firmly in place. It had taken almost no effort to erect them around him again like a shield against emotional weakness.

It had served him well when Kaede died.

Being the first mortal he'd known who he'd outlived naturally, it made a great impact. That he considered her a friend, much as he'd never have admitted it to her, and the prevailing voice of wisdom in his life made it even worse. But with his walls in place, he'd managed to shove his feelings of grief - stronger than he'd ever expected them to be for the old miko - behind them, along with his feelings for Kikyo and Kagome both and how he missed them, and the never-closing wound that was his mother's premature death.

He'd rarely been into the village since Kaede's death. Since she'd been pushing seventy when she passed, it hadn't been surprising, but in all honesty, she'd been the only thing that kept Inuyasha involved with the humans who lived there. None of the others had any importance in his life. Not a single one gave him any reason to go back to a place haunted by so many memories of too many people he'd never see again.

With all this tragedy in less than a decade, it was no surprise Inuyasha had fallen back into his old way of living before he'd found Kikyo and suffered the first dent in his armour. He'd survived before her by looking out for himself and himself only and, contrary to what those who knew him believed, he was not stupid, so why forsake a way of life that worked? He had no one left to spare compassion on, not when he was an individual for whom suspicion and mistrust had practically been armour for so long.

All this considered, his reaction to a stranger - not even one of the nameless village women - attempting to call him down from the Goshinboku, where he reclined on a wide branch with his legs crossed, his eyes closed, and his folded arms pillowing his head, was only natural.

"Piss off, woman," he said in a bored tone.

She wanted him to help her pick up the things she'd dropped. His only thought was that she shouldn't have been so fucking clumsy. Why should he make himself uncomfortable to go help the lazy wench, anyway? By the time he got down there - if he'd had to climb, that is, which she couldn't know he didn't have to do - she'd have bloody picked them all up, anyway. What would he have been supposed to do then? Offer to carry her bag so she didn't do it again?

Fat chance.

When she didn't curse at him or burst into tears or do _anything_ that made a sound, he cracked open one eye and peered down at her. The furious glare she was levelling at him almost made him shift uncomfortably; with her pretty face, long dark hair and big, brown eyes, she reminded him of another girl who used to get very angry at him on a regular basis. His _oh, shit_ urge to squirm was a trained-by-experience reaction.

Still, this wasn't Kagome, she wasn't going to 'sit' him, and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot else she could do to him, so he pointedly closed his eye again and ignored her.

That is, until she started muttering and his skin prickled all over from a rise of magic in the air. He sat bolt upright and his eyes snapped open. "Hey, what're you --"

He didn't get time for more than that before her muttering in a language he didn't recognise reached a crescendo and all the magic gathering in the air accumulated into one spot. Then, before he could do so much as blink, the full force of it shot at him with the speed and strength of a sacred arrow.

 _Shit_ -

It hit him before he could jump out of the way. It struck square in the chest and knocked him back against the trunk of the Goshinboku in such a way that a powerful flood of nostaliga washed over him before he shook it off. He concentrated instead on the feel of magic tingling over his skin, of his muscles tensing in anticipation of pain.

None came.

When the last tingle had gone, Inuyasha whipped his head around and gave the woman - magic user, whatever - a glare of his own. "What the hell did you just do to me?!"

She ignored him, blotches of angry colour on her cheeks, and continued stuffing her belongings aggressively into her bag.

Inuyasha leapt off the branch and to the ground. He frowned as he landed; his balance felt off, like there was... more of him, somehow. A quick glance downwards confirmed that nothing was amiss. Still, he was pissed now, and it was her fault. He drew himself up to his full height over the crouching woman, his eyes flashing as he stared down at her. "Don't ignore me! What the fuck did you do, wench?"

Sniffing haughtily, the woman stood up and, regardless of their differences in height - she barely came up to his shoulder - glared daggers up at him right back. "If you are too _stupid_ to realise," she said stiffly, "that is _not_ my fault."

She turned then, ignoring how his knuckles cracked loudly as his hands turned into agitated fists, and walked away from him, her nose up in the fucking air like the stuck up bitch she was. Inuyasha ground his teeth together, longing to lash out at her like he would any youkai, but not being able to. However ornery he'd become in recent years, his moral code was still as strong as ever. He couldn't strike an unarmed woman. Sure, she had magic, but all she'd done with it was smack him against a tree and upset his balance a tiny bit. He was already adjusting to that. If she wasn't dangerous... well, he couldn't justify smacking her like he wanted to.

Muttering angry curses under his breath, the hanyou turned back to the Goshinboku, intending to go back to his mid-afternoon doze and forget all about the woman, his ears and tail twitching in agitation. He bent his knees, preparing to jump - then his whole body tensed as his brain caught up with what his senses were telling him.

 _Tail?! What the fuck?!_

Desperate and not a little weirded out, Inuyasha clawed at the back of his hakama until he could pull the damn thing away from his ass and stick his hand in there. He shuddered when it clamped down on a long, furry appendage. It was soft, with the same kind of velvety fur he had on his ears, but longer. Much, much longer. He yanked it out to look at it, morbidly fascinated even as his heart hammered in his chest, and stared.

It was longer than he'd first thought. He guessed it would probably hang below his knees if he let it fall limply, and the long, downy-feather soft fur that hid the thin, fleshy part was silver like the rest of him. No surprise there. Still, that didn't stop Inuyasha from disbelieving - hoping, really - that it wasn't part of him. Ignoring the new nerve endings that told his brain they registered his hand's grip, he yanked hard enough on the tail to make himself yelp.

 _Fuck._

That bitch had given him a tail. He couldn't fucking believe it. Of all the cruel, petty, _bitchy_ things she could have done... And all because he'd not wanted to help her pick up her crap! Hadn't been _his_ fault she'd dropped all that shit.

Turning suddenly to glare in the direction the woman had disappeared, Inuyasha roughly shoved his tail back inside his hakama. Now that he was aware of it, Inuyasha could feel every silky twitch of fur against his legs. He shuddered again. That was just... not right. With a new burst of anger to join the first, the outraged hanyou began stomping after the sorceress, fully prepared to beat the shit out of her this time.

Less than a minute into his pursuit, Inuyasha hit a dead end. Not so much an insurmountable physical obstacle, but a decided lack of anything more to follow. There were no tracks. There was no scent. There wasn't even so much as a fucking broken twig to tell him where she'd gone after he'd lost sight of her. It was like she hadn't even fucking existed. And if he couldn't find her... he couldn't force her to undo what she'd done.

"Great! Just fucking _great_!" he shouted at no one in particular. "How the fuck am I supposed to fix this?!"


	2. Frustration, The Name is Hanyou

Laying on his back in the middle of a field of flowers, chewing a long piece of grass, Inuyasha scowled up at the blue sky overhead.

It had been a week since _the incident_. A whole fucking week he'd had to put up with the tail that bitch had given him.

He hadn't been able to find her after she'd vanished. He'd been to practically every village within a five mile radius of the Goshinboku. Maybe even ten miles. But without a scent or a set of tracks to follow, he had as much chance of stumbling across the sorceress as a bumbling human with no tracking skills.

In other words, no fucking chance.

It made it worse that the memory of her face was starting to lose its sharpness. After so long, when he hadn't paid much attention to her to begin with, she was starting to change from a well-formed image in his mind to a generic human woman. These past couple of days, he could have walked right by her in a village street and not even realised.

He was beginning to worry he was never going to find her.

He was worrying even more about the fact that he was getting used to that... thing. His subconscious mind, at least. His conscious mind was so repulsed he couldn't even touch it unless it was absolutely necessary. As a result, the fur was already tangled into an unmanageable mess, but the hanyou refused to acknowledge it enough to care.

Inuyasha narrowed his eyes at the sky and _willed_ it to darken quicker. Tonight was a new moon, and he would become human as soon as the sun set. Never in his life had he welcomed his transformation more. No more fucking tail! No more ears, fangs and claws, either, but he considered it an equal trade to get rid of the abomination, at least for a few hours, even if he mourned their loss. Even the ears. They may look fucking stupid and get him stared at all the time, but they had their uses. They were way more powerful than the pathetic, fleshy shells his human side had.

A quick glance over at the sun told the impatient hanyou that there was at least three hours to go before sunset. He puffed his cheeks out in an irritated sigh and resigned himself to the long wait.

Then he froze as a familiar youki tickled his senses.

With his teeth gritted and body tense, Inuyasha closed his eyes and stubbornly resolved to ignore the asshole. The youki came closer and closer, moving at immense speed, and Inuyasha decided Sesshomaru must have made himself into a ball again. Inuyasha allowed a mental snigger. He didn't know what that thing was called and had never asked, but it amused the hell out of him. It made him think of a giant firefly, and damn if it wasn't funny to imagine the regal and poised Lord Sesshomaru buzzing around like all the other bugs.

He was closer now, almost on top of Inuyasha. Still, the hanyou refused to open his eyes. A brief rustle of the long grass, and he knew his brother was standing over him. He was not going to open his eyes. Sesshomaru was nothing if not proud; he hated being ignored. If Inuyasha didn't acknowledge him, maybe he'd get annoyed and piss off -

"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said in a too neutral voice, "what is that bulge between your legs?"

Inuyasha bit down on the inside of his mouth to keep from howling. His tail thrashed irritably in his hakama, and his eyes popped open just in time to see Sesshomaru's gaze taking it in, one elegant eyebrow slightly raised. He cursed and hastily sat up, crossing his legs to cover it. He realised what he'd done mere seconds after and how stupid it must look, but stubbornly refused to undo it now that it was done.

He chewed the side of his mouth and glared irritably at his brother while he tried to calm down enough to speak. It was his own damn fault Sesshomaru had managed to get a shot at him like that - having his tail between his legs was the most comfortable position; having it to either side bent it slightly and made him more aware of the thing - but that didn't make him any less pissed. And slightly weirded out.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?" he finally managed. "Why the fuck did you say it like that?" Seeing the slight curling of Sesshomaru's lips, the glimmer of amusement in his eyes, made Inuyasha all the more angry. Discovering Sesshomaru had such a wicked sense of humour had been an unhappy shock for the hanyou, who had never taken well to being laughed at. "Look, clear the fuck off. I don't want you around tonight."

The humour in Sesshomaru's eyes flickered and died. "Tonight is the new moon," he said, as though that settled everything.

"I don't give a shit!" Inuyasha shot back, his hackles beginning to rise. "Don't want you here. My fucking choice, jerkwad."

"You are vulnerable tonight," Sesshomaru replied curtly. Again, like it settled things.

Like a petulant child, Inuyasha swivelled on his ass and turned his back on his brother. He was fully aware it wasn't the most mature gesture, but he didn't care. Not looking at Sesshomaru was the only way he could calm himself down enough to talk without blowing up at him. Even Inuyasha could admit that that would be unfair to Sesshomaru.

No had ever asked Sesshomaru to come and stand guard on the moonless night as he did every month, after all.

Inuyasha appreciated his older brother being so considerate. He truly did. Ever since they'd reached an unspoken agreement and entered into a sort of truce, the hanyou's life had become a lot less dangerous. Fighting together against Naraku had finally laid the groundwork; they'd been forced to rely on each other's presence and strength in that final battle, and each had walked away with a grudging respect for the other. From there, it had just been a matter of time until they came to the mutual decision that neither would seek the other's death ever again.

Not that any of this made up for the bad blood from past centuries. That baggage would stay between them for the forseeable future; perhaps even forever. Both of them, however, had shown themselves to be gracious enough to work around such an obstacle and meet each other in the middle. An easy camaraderie existed now, and Inuyasha found he enjoyed Sesshomaru's company now that their conversations weren't peppered with insults - though they still got in the occasional good-natured rib every now and then, and there was Sesshomaru's evil, almost sadistic sense of humour to consider. And damn if it wasn't nice to spar with a worthy opponent that wasn't trying to kill him for real.

Inuyasha did appreciate Sesshomaru's gesture. It allowed him to relax and even _sleep_ on the night of the new moon, something he hadn't managed since his mother had been alive. But he just didn't want him around right now. Not until he'd exhausted every possibility of fixing his problem himself. It was just too embarrassing to even consider letting Sesshomaru see that... thing... if he didn't have to.

Before Inuyasha could think of a reasonable excuse, however, a white clad knee dropped to the ground beside him and his brother's only hand reached out and grasped his chin. Inuyasha flinched, but not out of pain. He just knew that Sesshomaru's eyes rarely missed anything, and that they saw through him more often than not. Sure enough, when Sesshomaru firmly moved his chin and forced their eyes to meet, his were just slightly narrowed in consideration.

Their gazes remained locked in silence for long moments before Sesshomaru spoke. "Inuyasha, there is something that is concerning you that you are hiding from me." Those calm golden eyes dropped for a split second to his crotch, and Inuyasha covered it reflexively with his hands.

Flushing, embarrassed by his own actions, Inuyasha automatically jumped to an angry response to attempt to cover it. "Fuck off! Stop doing that!" he shot back, jerking his chin out of his brother's gentle grip. He saw Sesshomaru's eyes go slightly remote, and he immediately felt a wash of shame. Sesshomaru was not overly expressive; the quiet, almost gentle tone he'd used was the daiyoukai's equivalent of openly expressing concern, Inuyasha had learned in recent years.

With a huff, Inuyasha folded his arms and looked away from Sesshomaru. "Fine. Whatever. Fuck it, you can stay as long as you stop asking those fucking stupid questions." He snuck a glance at Sesshomaru and felt annoyed to see a slight hint of triumph in the daiyoukai's eyes. "You're such a pushy bastard. Shit."

Resigned to having to keep his secret from his brother until the sun rose tomorrow morning, Inuyasha pushed himself to his feet and wrapped his tail around one leg as Sesshomaru rose fluidly beside him. The sensation of all that fur that _shouldn't be there_ touching his skin gave him an urge to shudder in revulsion, but he battled it furiously down. Anymore strange behaviour would start the questions again.

"Come on, you annoying fucker," Inuyasha said, forcing his tone to be cheerful, and set his feet on a path towards the Goshinboku. It was his usual place to rest whenever the new moon was upon him. He kept his head up, his back straight, and resolved to ignore the weighing eyes he could literally feel on the back of his skull. He knew Sesshomaru well enough by now to know that just because the daiyoukai was silent on an undesired topic did not mean he'd dropped it entirely. He would be considering things, turning them over in his mind, examining them from every angle. And soon or later, he would bring it up again from a new perspective, with new insight.

It was fucking annoying.

But since he knew it was the best he could expect right now, Inuyasha gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut. Just a few hours, he reminded himself. Just a few hours and he could flee from Sesshomaru's company without needing an excuse.

Repeating that like a mantra inside his head, Inuyasha headed beneath the canopy of his forest.


End file.
